Enjoying the photos and trip report Groucho!
I'm headed to a conference in FL and will be at WDW late Thursday and Friday. If I see a very new Pentax with you attached to it I'll say hi!
We'll see how bleary we are on Friday; we're all getting up very early to support Mrs Groucho running the 5k that morning... and the kids running their races later that morning. My "official" plans are MK after that they maybe EMH at Epcot 'til midnight, but I may drop before then!
Back to the trip report....
Day 3 was Epcot. It was pretty much a Future World day. We stopped in, watched the Jammitors perform, and grabbed Soarin' fastpasses, then ate breakfast at Sunshine Seasons (the big eatery in The Land.) I'm usually pretty content with what I get there but it's never really blown me away. Did a quick ride on Living With the Land then ran over to Mouse Gear to use a 20% coupon that they'd been printing at the bottom of some receipts. Mrs Groucho grabbed a Minnie sweatshirt, I grabbed an old-style Epcot shirt that I probably should have skipped (very expensive and the Mrs doesn't particularly like it) but the coupon expired at 12pm, it was 11:59, and I said what the heck. Off to Test Track, Universe of Energy, and The Seas, then back to Sunshine Seasons, grab lunch/dinner, and then over to the Imagination pavilion. This place is almost less fun than Wonders of Life, and I mean now, when it's been closed for years. The ride is banal (despite being a huge Monty Python fan and having no particular aversion to Figment), despite a rather good ride system, and this is another of those infuriating ones that blows stink at you. Sorry, I don't think skunk smell is all that hilarious. Now that Kodak has pulled sponsorship, the majority of the post-show area is walled off. Yet, they still have those great water features. We didn't try to see Captain Eo - I think it was closed at this point, but even so, I'm not going to make much effort to see it. If we stumble on it, sure; but I just am not real interested, just like I wasn't back when it was new.
Next, off to Spaceship Earth, then to Mexico for Gran Fiesta Tour. For some reason, Jack loves this, despite me calling it the "cheeseball" ride last trip, and now he sometimes calls it that. Then, Illuminations and back to our hotel.
A couple other notes:
Line-cutting seems to be the new "flash on dark rides." I saw some truly epic line-cutting at Splash Mt on day 2 (lots of people doing it, and often multiple people, sometimes big groups) "catching up" with family/friends. At Toy Story Mania yesterday, a group of about eight people pushed their way through. Grrrr!
Speaking of lines, everyone seems very distracted now. Seems like half the people are playing video games or texting. I almost got a shot of one family near me in one queue, with the son playing a PSP, the daughter a DS, and one or both parents banging away at their cell phones. Disney might was well start tearing out the preshow and queue theming and use the space for cell repeaters, wifi hotspots, and induction chargers.
Here's a shot I forgot to post from the last group... yumminess at F1.2.
Now here's a few shots from day 3, at Epcot. This was some sort of apple pastry from Sunshine Seasons, which was unbelievably dense (even the forks could barely penetrate it.) Interesting but I'll probably skip it next time.
I like these little wingnuts in Mouse Gear, but this one has met with an accident!
Jack loves Test Track.
I did a bunch of these; this'll probably benefit some from post-processing, but I thought it was an interesting angle that I hadn't seen before.
This was a quick point-n-shoot but the sky looked pretty interesting in it.
I've got a few more ready but I'll save those for the next update.
